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THE NECKLACE
A short story dissected. A LABORATORY METHOD The more we study, the more we discover our ignorance. ---SEELLay, Scenes from Calderon. Let the student take any representative short-story and make a study of the author's method, noting the merits and the defects of the story, with particular reference to its essential parts, after the manner of the dissecting method employed in the following study. First read the story through to gain a general impression ; then summarize that impression as briefly as possible. Next write out a short scenario. Read the story a third time, slowly, to make a study of its parts, noting results as in the appended example. THE NECKLACE BY GUY DE MAUPASSANT (1850-1893) Happy are they whom life satisfies, who can amuse themselves, and be content . . . who have not discovered, with a vast disgust, . . . that all things are a weariness.— Guy DE MALTPASSART. Maupassant was a Latin of good, clear, solid head, a maker of beautiful sentences shining like gold, pure as the diamond . . . having the good sense, logic, balance, power, and clearness of the old Frenchblood.— `.MILE ZOLA. He who destroys the ideal destroys himself. In art and in life Maupassant lived in the lower order of facts, the brutal world of events unrelated to a spiritual order. He drained his;senses of the last power of sensation and reaction; he plunged headlong into the sensual life upon which they opened when the luminous heaven above the material world was obliterated. Madness always lies that way as a matter of physiology as well as of morals, and Maupassant went the tragic way of the sensualist since time began.— HAMILTON W. MAma. Maupassant saw life with his senses, and he reflected on it in a purely animal revolt, the recoil of the hurt animal. His observation is not, as it has been hastily assumed to be, cold; it is as superficially emotional as that of the average sensual man, and its cynicism is only another, not less superficial, kind of feeling. He saw life in all its details, and his soul was entangled in the details. He saw it without order, without recompense, without pity; he saw it too clearly to be duped by appearances, and too narrowly to distinguish any light beyond what seemed to him the enclosing bounds of darkness.—Arraua SYMONS. Maupassant was the most finished short-story writer of all; but he lacked spiritual power, and so he missed much of the world's beauty. An inflexible realist, he pressed his method farther than did Flaubert, his uncle and preceptor. From life's raw materials he wove incomparably brilliant fiction-fabrics, equally distinguished for plot, characterization, and style. Be-. sides "The Necklace," his ablest short-stories are "The Vendetta," "The Piece of String," "The Horla," "A Coward," " Tallow-ball," " Moonlight," "Little Soldier," " The Confession," and "The Wreck." Thirteen of his stories have been collected in "The Odd Number" (Harper), with an Introduction by Henry james.—J. B. E. THE NECKLACE She was one of those pretty and charming girls who, as if by an error of destiny, are born into a family of clerks. She had no dowry, no expectations, no means of being known, understood, loved, wedded, by any rich and distinguished man, and she let herself be married to a minor clerk at the Ministry of Public Instruction. She dressed plainly since she could not dress well, but she was as unhappy as a woman who has really fallen from her proper station; for women have neither caste nor race; their beauty, grace, and charm act instead of family and birth. Natural fineness, instinct for what is elegant, suppleness of wit, are their sole hierarchy, and make from women of the people the equals of the greatest of great ladies. She suffered endlessly, feeling herself born for all the delicacies and all the luxuries of life. She suffered on account of the poverty of her dwelling, from the wretched look of the walls, from the dilapidated chairs, from the ugliness of the curtains. All those things of which another woman of her caste would never even have been conscious, tortured her and made her angry. The sight of the little Breton servant who did her humble housework aroused in her despairing regrets and distracted dreams. She thought of the silent antechambers hung with Oriental fabrics, lighted by tall bronze candelabra, and with two great footmen in knee-breeches who dozed in the big arm-chairs, made drowsy by the heavy warmth of the stove. She dreamed of the long salons fitted up with old silk, of the delicate furniture carrying priceless curiosities, and of the coquettish perfumed boudoirs made for talks at five o'clock with intimate friends, with men famous and sought after, whose notice all women envy and desire. When she sat down to dine before the round table covered with a cloth three days old, opposite her husband, who, as he uncovered the soup- tureen, declared with an enchanted air, " Ah, the good old stew! I don't know anything better than that," she thought of dainty dinners, of gleaming silverware, of tapestry which peopled the walls with ancient personages and with strange birds inthe midst of a fairy forest; and she dreamed of delicious dishes served on wondrous plates, and of the whispered gallantries to which you listen with a sphinx-like smile, while eating the pink flesh of a trout or the wing of a fowl. She had no fine dresses, no jewels, nothing. And she loved nothing else; she felt that she was made for that. She would so have liked to please, to be envied, to be charming and sought after.She had a rich friend, a former schoolmate at the convent, whom she did not like to go and see any more, because she suffered so much when she came home. She wept whole days. One evening her husband returned home with a conqueror's air, holding a large envelope in his hand. " There," said he, " is something for you." She tore the paper sharply, and drew out a printed card on which were these words: to. " The Minister of Public Instruction and Mme. Georges Ramponneau ask the honor of M. and Mme. Loisel's company at the palace of the Ministry on Monday evening, January 18th." x t. Instead of being overjoyed, as her husband hoped, she threw the invitation on the table with disdain, murmuring: " What do you expect me to do with that?" " Why, my dear, I thought you would be glad. You never go out, and this is a fine opportunity! I had tremendous difficulty in getting it. Every one wants to go; they are greatly sought after, and they are not giving many to clerks. The whole official world will be there." 14. She looked at him with an irritated eye, and said, impatiently : is. " And what do you expect me to put on my back?"z6. He had not thought of that. 17. " Why," he stammered, " the dress you wear to the theater. It looks very well to me —" i8. He stopped, stupefied, seeing that his wife was weeping. Two great tears ran slowly from the corners of her eyes towards the corners of her mouth. Jo. " What's the matter?" he stuttered. " What's the matter?" But by a violent effort she had conquered her grief, and she replied, in a calm voice, as she wiped her wetcheeks: " Nothing; only I have no dress, and therefore I can't go to this ball. Give your card to some colleague whose wife is better equipped than I." He was in despair. He resumed: " Come, let us see, Mathilde. How much would it cost, a suitable dress which you could use on other occasions; something very simple?" She reflected a few seconds, making her calculations and also wondering what sum she could ask without drawing on herself an immediate refusal and a shocked exclamation from the economical clerk. Finally she replied, hesitatingly: " I don't know exactly, but I think I could manage with four hundred francs." He grew a little pale, for he had laid aside just that amount tobuy a gun and treat himself to a little summer shooting on the plain of Nanterre, with several friends who went to shoot larks down there, on Sundays. But he said: "All right. I will giveyou four hundred francs. And try to have a pretty dress." 3o. The day of the ball drew near, and Mme. Loisel seemed sad, uneasy, anxious. Her dress was ready, however. Her husband said to her one evening: "What is the matter? Come, you've been very queer these last three days." And she replied: "It annoys me to have not a single jewel, not a single stone, nothing to put on. I shall look like distress. I should almost rather not go at alL" He rejoined: " You might wear natural flowers. They are very stylish at this time of year. For ten francs you can get two or three magnificent roses." She was not convinced. "No; there's nothing more humiliating than to look poor among other women who are rich." But her husband cried: 39. "How stupid you are! Go hunt up your friend Mme. Forestier, and ask her to lend you some jewels. You're quite thick enough with her to do that."4o, She uttered a cry of joy. " It's true. I never thought of that." The next day she went to her friend and told of her trouble. Mme. Forestier went to a wardrobe with a glass door, took out a large jewel-case, brought it back to Mme. Loisel, opened it, and said: " Choose, my dear." She saw first of all some bracelets, then a pearl necklace, then a Venetian cross, all gold and precious stones, an admirable piece of workmanship. She tried on the ornaments before the glass, hesitated, could not make up her mind to part with them, to give them back. She kept asking: " Haven't you any more?" " Why, yes, look. I don't know what may strike your fancy." Suddenly she discovered in a black satin box a superb necklace of diamonds; and her heart began to beat with an immoderate desire. Her hands trembled as she took it up. She fastened it around her throat, outside her high-necked dress, and remained lost in ecstasy at the sight of her own image. 49. Then she asked, hesitatingly, in an anguish of suspense: 5o. " Can you lend me this, only this?" " Why, yes, certainly." She sprang upon the neck of her friend, kissed her passionately, then fled with her treasure.The day of the ball arrived. Mme. Loisel made a triumph. She was prettier than them all,—elegant, gracious, smiling, and mad with joy. All the men stared at her, asked her name, endeavored to be introduced. All the attaches of the Cabinet wanted to waltz with her. She was noticed by the Minister himself. She danced with intoxication, with passion, drunk with pleasure, forgetting all in the triumph of her beauty, in the glory of her success, in a sort of cloud of happiness composed of all that homage, of all that admiration, of all those awakened desires, and of that complete victory which is so sweet to woman's heart. She left about four o'clock in the morning. Her husband had been sleeping since midnight in a little deserted anteroom, with three other gentlemen whose wives were having a very good time. He threw over her shoulders the wraps which he had brought — modest garments of everyday life, whose poverty contrasted with the elegance of her ball dress. She felt this, and wanted to escape so as not to be noticed by the other women who were enveloping themselves in costly furs. Loisel held her back. " Wait a little. You'll catch cold outside. I'll go and call a cab." 59. She did not heed him, but rapidly descended the stairs. When they were in the street, they couldnot find a disengaged carriage, and began to look for one, shouting after the cabmen whom they saw passing at a distance. 6o. They went down towards the Seine, in despair, shivering with cold. At last they found on the quay one of those ancient noctambulant coupes, which, just as if they were ashamed to uncover their misery during the day, are never seen in Paris until after nightfall. 6z. It took them to their door in the Rue des Martyrs, and once more, now sadly, they climbed up to their apartment. All was ended for her. And as for him, he reflected that he must be at the Ministry by ten o'clock. She removed the wraps which covered her shoulders, standing before the glass, so as once more to see herself in all her glory. But suddenly she uttered a cry. The necklace was no longer around her neck! Her husband, already half undressed, demanded: " What is the matter with you?" She turned madly towards him. "1 have — I have — I've lost Mme. Forestier's aeckkce." He sprang up,distracted. "What l—how?—Impossible!" And they %eked in the folds of the dress, in the bide of the cloak, in all the pockets, everywhere. They did not find it. He asked: "You're sure you had it on when you left the ball?" " Yes, I felt it in the vestibule of the palace." " But, if you had lost it in the street we should have heard it fall. It must be in the cab." " Yes. Probably. Did you take the number?" " No. Didn't you notice it?" "No." Thunderstruck, they looked at one another. At last Loisel put on his clothes. "I shall go back on foot," said he, "over the whole distance we walked, to see if I can't find it." And he went out. She sat there on a chair in her ball dress, without strength to go to bed, overwhelmed. without fire, without a thought. Her husband came back about seven o'clock. He had found nothing. Fle went to Police Headquarters, to the newspaper offices, to offer a reward; he went to the cab companies — everywhere, in fact, whither he was urged by the least suspicion of hope. She waited all day, in the same state of mad fear in the face of this terrible calamity. 83. Loisel returned at night with hollow, pale cheeks; he had discovAced nothing." You must write to your friend," said he, "that you have broken the clasp of her necklace, and that you are having it mended. That will give us time to turn around." She wrote at his dictation. At the end of a week they had lost all hope. And Loisel, who had aged five years, declared: 88. " We must consider how to replace the necklace." 8g. The next day they took the box which had contained it, and they went to the jeweler whose name was within. He consulted his books. 9o. " It was not I, Madame, who sold that necklace; I simply furnished the case." Then they went from jeweler to jeweler, searching for a necklace like the other, consulting their memories, fairly sick, both of them, with chagrin and with anguish. In a shop at the Palais Royal they found a string of diamonds which seemed to them exactly like the one she had lost. It was worth forty thousand francs, but they could have it for thirty-six thousand. So they begged the jeweler not to sell it for three days, making a bargain that he should buy it back for thirty-four thousand francs, in case they found the lost necklace before the end of February. Loisel had eighteen thousand francs which his father had left him. He would borrow the rest. He did borrow, asking a thousand francs of one, five hundred of another, five louis here, three louis there. He gave notes, assumed ruinous obligations, dealt with usurers, and all the race of money lenders. He compromised all the rest of his life, risked his signature without even knowing if he would be able to meet it ; and, frightened by the pangs yet to come, by the black misery which was about to fall upon him, by the prospect of all the physical privations and of all the moral tortures he was yet to suffer, he went for the new necklace and put down upon the merchant's counter the thirty-six thousand francs. g6. When Mme. Loisel returned the necklace, Mme. Forestier said, with a chilly manner: 97. " You ought to have returned it sooner. I might have needed it." g8. However, she did not open the case, as her friend had so much dreaded. If she had detected the substitution, what would she have thought, what would she have said? Would she not have taken her for a thief? I 99. Madame Loisel now experienced the horrible existence of the needy. But she took her part, all on a sudden, with real heroism. That dreadful debt must be paid. She would pay it. They dismissed their servant; they changed their lodgings; they rented a garret under the roof.ioo. She came to know what heavy housework meant and the odious tasks of the kitchen. She washed the dishes, wearing away her rosy nails on the greasy pots and pans. She washed the dirty linen, the shirts and dish cloths, which she dried upon a line; she carried the slops down to the street every morning, and carried up the water, stopping to take breath at every landing. And, dressed like a woman of the people, she went to the fruiterer's, the grocer's, the butcher's, her basket on her arm, bargaining, insulted, defending her pitiful money sou by sou. lox. Each month they had to meet some notes, renew others, beg for more time. Her husband worked evenings straightening out some tradesman's accounts, and late at night he would copy manuscript for five sous a page. And this life lasted ten years. io4. At the end of ten years they had paid everything, everything, with the charges of usurers, and the accumulations of compound interest. log. Mme. Loisel looked old now. She had become the woman of impoverished households — strong and hard and rough. With frowsy hair, skirts askew, and red hands, she talked loudly while washing the floor With great splashing of water. But sometimes, when her husband was at the office, she sat down near the window, and she thought of that gayevening of long ago, of that ball where she had been so fair and so feted. io6. What would have happened if she had not lost that necklace? Who knows? Who knows? How strange is life, and how changeful! How little a thing is needed to ruin or to save us! 107. But one Sunday, having gone to take a walk in the Champs Illysees to refresh herself after the labors of the week, she suddenly observed a woman who was leading a child. It was Mme. Forestier, still young, still beautiful, still fascinating. zo8. Mme. Loisel was moved. Should she speak to her? Yes, certainly. And now that she had paid, she was going to tell her all about it. Why not? 109. She approached her. no. " Good-day, Jeanne." in. The other, astonished at being familiarly addressed by this plain goodwife, did not recognize her at all, and stammered: " But — Madame! — I don't know— You must be mistaken." " No, I am Mathilde Loisel." Her friend uttered a cry. " Oh, my poor Mathilde! How you have changed I " " Yes, I have had days hard enough since I last saw you, days wretched enough — and all because of you I" " Because of me! How so?"I ill. " You remember that diamondnecklace you lent me to wear at the Ministers' ball?" lig. "Yes. Well?" " Well, I lost it." " What do you mean? You brought it back." "I brought you another just like it. And we have been ten years paying for it. You may imagine that it was not easy for us — who had nothing. But at last it is ended, and I am very glad." Mme. Forestier stopped. " You say that you boughta diamond necklace to replace mine?" " Yes. You never noticed it, then! They were very like." 126.And she smiled witha joy which was at once proud and naive. 527. Mme. Forestier, strongly moved, took her two hands. 128. " Oh, my poor Mathilde! Why, my necklace was paste. It was worth at most five hundred francs!" Denouement forecast in ll 90. Climax, denouement, and conclusion.Naturally, Mme. Forestier returned the jewels, but the ten years could not be returned, nor all they cost and wrought. Mau- passant is too wise to tell a word of this. QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES FOR CLASS OR INDI VIDUALSTUDY OF "THE NECKLACE" AND OTHER SHORT-STORIES. i. What kind of story is this? Is the title adequate? What is the theme of thisstory? 4. Write out a brief scenario oftheplot. S. How many characters (a) speak, (b) are present but do not speak, © are referred to but are not present? What is the proportion of dialogue to description and comment? What is the author's attitude toward his characters? Are the characters idealized? Do you regard this story as being either realistic or romantic? 1o. Is the author's purpose apparent? Do you find any defects in the story in any respect? 12. What is the final impression the story makes upon you? Perhaps the greatest lesson which the lives of literary men teach us is told in a single word: Wait!—LONGFELLOW, Hyperion. There is probably no hell for authors in the next world — they suffer so much from publishers and critics in this.—Bows,Summaries of Thought; Authors.